The Edge
The play in Basset resulted in, basically, a lottery. A player might occasionally win, but the big winner was the dealer (banker). The dealer had a number of privileges under the rules, including having the sole disposal of the first and last card; this gave him or her a significant edge. This was a truth so acknowledged in France that the king ordered, by public edict, that the privilege of a tallière (banker) should be allowed only to the chief cadets (sons of noblemen). His assumption was that whoever kept the bank must, in a very short time, acquire a considerable fortune.
Read more about this topic: Basset (card Game)
Famous quotes containing the word edge:
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Listen, little Elia: draw your chair up close to the edge of the precipice and I’ll tell you a story.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Americans see history as a straight line and themselves standing at the cutting edge of it as representatives for all mankind. They believe in the future as if it were a religion; they believe that there is nothing they cannot accomplish, that solutions wait somewhere for all problems, like brides.”
—Frances Fitzgerald (b. 1940)